The Norwich programme cover was a colourful commemoration of the play-off final, a stylised pitch flecked with yellow and red ticker tape and the shadow of the trophy and The Arch looming large. Ouch.

A lot has changed since then. Both sides have had a tilt at the top flight and both suffered a bruising relegation.

Both have suffered changes in the dug-out, a massive turnover in players and had to come to terms with just exactly how quickly the glitz of the Premier League fades.

But a lot has stayed the same. Of the Boro team at Carrow Road, Ben Gibson, Dani Ayala, George Friend, Adam Clayton, Grant Leadbitter and Patrick Bamford all played in the previous visit, a tetchy 1-0 win back in April 2015. Of the Norwich team, just Alex Tettey.

Given the turmoil at Boro since then, the ups and downs, the changes of management - four in the last 12 months - and the vast millions spent on players over three generously funded summers that is a bit surprising.

You could argue that such a core group offers stability, continuity and cultural memory, that they are the platform of a promotion push.

Experience of the pressure that comes with the intensity of summit scramble is a precious commodity and in theory should serve Boro well.

Equally you could put a compelling case that Boro have not moved on, that the team has not been renewed and refreshed and that such stagnation is part of the problem.

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Much of the money that has been spent has been on transitory players who came and went without strengthening the team in the long term.

In the window just gone, for instance, £15m worth of strikers left on loan. Yet one rash red card and suddenly Boro look striker light, or at least without any frontmen the manager appears to invest much confidence in.

The last time Boro fans left Carrow Road, after being subjected to a sustained assault, it was with renewed confidence that the team would get promoted, or at least make the play-offs.

Aitor Karanka’s side had dug deep, contained the Canaries in a tactical tempered steel cage and showed an unquenchable zeal to get a result by hook-or-by-crook.

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They took a battering in a cauldron of hostility that night - Patrick Bamford picked up an injury that was to blight the rest of the season and cost dearly at Wembley while Jelle Vossen was sent to hospital with concussion - but sheer will to win got them through. That and ‘game management’ and the Dark Arts.

This time round though many Boro supporters will have left Norfolk with a sigh and shrug of resignation that this team does not have what it takes to bridge the gap to the play-offs.

There may even have been the dark suspicion that there is an unspoken acceptance that this season has gone, and that, as when Gordon Strachan arrived in a relatively strong position, the boss is treating it as an extended pre-season ready for a big push with his own team next term.

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Or it may just be that, simply, this team is not good enough, not strong enough, technically, tactically or mentally.

Whenever they are presented with a chance as other results offer a ladder up to the dotted lines they fall short.

Whenever they are faced with a test of character against big teams or against adversity, they fail.

That is not a reflection on Tony Pulis. If the team are not mentally strong enough it pre-dates his arrival.

It was evident throughout the Garry Monk reign and may be a direct hangover from a traumatic relegation.

It bubbles through the long list of failures to beat the top teams and the leaden-limbed disappointments to average sides who appear to out-think and out-fight Boro with ease.

The optimism and excited babble about gatecrashing the top six and even making a surge for second after the win at QPR just a fortnight ago has faded fast.

The failure to put a drab, negative Sheffield Wednesday side to the sword in midweek has flagged up the problems of winning games at home and the fatal on-going inability to make even good chances count.